A legal battle between 184 moderators and Samasource (Sama), a content moderation company, continues over allegations of unlawful mass layoffs at Facebook's moderation hub in Nairobi.
The case, which was filed in March of this year, also involves Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and its outsourcers.
The employees seek compensation for unfair termination of employment equivalent to twelve month's gross salary, damages amounting to Sh10 million per moderator for unfair labour practices and a further Sh20 million each, for violation of their rights.
The layoffs were announced in January, with Sama claiming it had no work for the moderators as its contract with Meta had expired.
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However, their legal representative said Sama was blocked from terminating their contracts or giving the content moderators’ jobs to another party.
Senior counsel Fred Ojiambo told the court that since the court was to determine whether the moderators were employed by Meta or not, the multinational should not be compelled to pay the workers.
In April, Sama sent the moderators on compulsory leave, prompting demonstrations by the moderators at the company's headquarters in Nairobi.
They accused Sama of withholding their salaries for April. However, Sama has maintained that it is operating within the confines of a court order and its contract with Facebook has expired.
"The court declined to grant the order seeking to prevent the expiry of contracts and directed that the individual contracts cannot be varied. As a consequence, the expiry dates of each contract of employment could not be changed and every employee's employment expired automatically on their respective expiry date," Sama said in a statement.
"All employees whose contracts have not expired continue to be kept on payroll and are being paid. All of those who have expired contracts are no longer Sama employees."
The court had given an order stopping Meta from switching to Majorel, another content moderation company, on the grounds that the switch was being carried out in a discriminatory way.
The injunction was extended, with Sama being directed to continue reviewing content for Meta and being its sole provider in Africa until the legality of the redundancy is determined.
Meta had tried to challenge the order, but the court shut it down and ruled in favour of the injunction being extended.
Sama was also accused of blacklisting the laid-off workers in the lawsuit.
In response to the accusations, Sama has stated that it is operating within the confines of the court order.
The pending applications of the ongoing legal battle will be heard on May 25, with both parties being ordered not to litigate the case outside court.
The ongoing legal battle highlights the challenges faced by content moderation companies in Africa and the need for proper labour laws to be put in place to protect the rights of employees.
